$10 Rebate At Whole Foods & Other Travel Offers Compliments of AMEX

In my eyes, American Express has always been one of the most innovative financial companies out there. From their television ads to their recent Small Business Saturday initiative, they are always pushing the envelope.

The first card I ever applied for way back in 2006 was an American Express (and I was swiftly declined as I had no credit history). My first ever “loyalty card” was the Starwood American Express and I racked up some 70,000 SPG points for basically doing nothing. Although I eventually ended up closing that card due to the annual fee, it was through that card that I realized that it literally pays to be an American Express card holder even if you only have an entry level AMEX.

Fast-forward to January 2012 when for a client project, I was paid to open a Macy’s American Express card. Although the Macy’s AMEX can technically be used anywhere AMEX is accepted, I had only planned on using it at Macy’s solely to take advantage of their card-holder discounts.

AMEX must have realized a lot of people do this, so they sent me a mailer saying if I spent $150 outside of Macy’s on my AMEX, I’d get $20. Using Serve, I did just that and quickly earned $20 for free.

This past Fall AMEX had their annual Small Business Saturday promotion where they gave you $25 to spend at a Small Business. Unfortunately I didn’t have an AMEX at that time so I couldn’t get the $25 on my card, however my girlfriend and I did both get the $25 AMEX gift cards that they were giving out in conjunction with Small Business Saturday.

Then when I was in NYC in January, it happened to also be NYC Restaurant Week. AMEX was a sponsor of this event, so they had an offer that if you spent $25 at a participating Restaurant, you got $5 back. We were planning on going to a Restaurant included in the promotion anyways, so I got $5 off.

Then today while browsing Facebook, I came across AMEX’s Link, Like, Love program that will give you discounts based on companies you “like”. All you have to do is install their app which analyzes the pages you like. Creepy? Yes, but I figure since I am a card holder, they already know my SSN and know exactly what stores I use my card at so it is a little to late to want privacy.

After installing their app and allowing it to “analyse” my information, it populated some offers for me. For the time being it does look like the offers are pretty general and not super specific to users. However the deals were pretty awesome. For example, I love shopping at Whole Paycheck Whole Foods especially since it is right down the street from me. The only other deal I have ever seen for Whole Foods was a one time LivingSocial offer, so I was amazed to see an offer for $10 back for spending $50 at Whole Foods. Side note: I’m surprised Whole Foods doesn’t have their own Credit Card. I’d sign up for that in a heart beat.

Although you do need to virtually “add” the offer to your Credit Card, it doesn’t seem like there are many restrictions on these offers. So next time I go to Whole Foods, I just plan on buying a $50 gift card to satisfy the spend requirement.

I dug through some of the other offers available and there are a surprising number of really good travel offers (not all of them are viewable in the screen shot):

$50 back when you spend $250 at Crowne Plaza

$50 back when you spend $250 at Hotel Indigo

$50 back when you spend $250 at Intercontinental Hotels

10% Off Emirates Flights

If you have any American Express card, I’d highly suggest checking out the AMEX Facebook page and seeing what offers you get.